Hola Familia!

So ive got bad news, good news, and even better news....well start
with the bad news okay? So the bad news is that there is this rule in
the mission handbook that says "bathe yourself everyday" seems
reasonable right? well....Ive been struggling a little bit with that
rule hahaha.   For about the last 5 weeks there has been water in our
room sometimes and sometimes not...so...its been a struggle to find
time when we can take a shower.   Normally its wake up and shower, but
lately its been wake up and see if theres any water...so its always a
nice suprise in the morning :) But that brings me to the good news,
you remember those cleaning wipes that you sent to me in a couple
packages? yeah well those have come in real handy ;) haha in place of
taking a shower, its been me bathing with baby wipes....hahaha I love
the mission. But that brings me to the even better news! Yesterday the
zone leaders delivered me....2 packages!!!!! yay! oh man it was
awesome. one from the family and one from Allison. Thank you to all.
youre the best. I especially love the CDs you all sent. Those are life
savers and full of awesome music. job well done :) tell james thank
you very very much. The sweets always help out but dont worry ill be
sure to share with everyone else.

Sounds like everyone is having lots of fun and taking advantage. Wish
Grandpa a Happy 60th! I thought he was at least 75 ;) hahaha Love ya
Grandpa!

Today was a pretty exausting day. We went out to the fields where
they grow their crops and took lots of pictures. We also went to a
pretty cool museum where they had a lot of cool stuff to see. I hope
you all like the pics. Its kinda hard to explain but ill have to
explain when i get back home haha. This week was a little bit tough.
Coming into the week we had two baptisms that were "for sure" and one
for next sunday that was also "for sure"....youd think that by now i
would have realized that there is nothing "for sure" in the mission
let alone in Peru...at the end of this week we have 2 investigators
with whom we have lost contact and another that has a problem with the
law of chastity. I got pretty discouraged after that but i managed to
get myself to keep working which helped a lot. All in all next week is
transfers so well have to see how it goes. Im pretty sure that Elder
Garcia will be getting out of here because he has 6 months here in
catacaos. Ill let ya know!


Not much time to write becaue i was writing the pres about the BYU  applicatoin but,

Love you all tons. Thanks for all that you do for me and the love you
send. Especailly all the work and money that go into those packages.
Youre the best! Until the next time!

Love,
Elder Woodburn

Whats new from Peru?

Hola a todos!

This week went well enough here in Peru. The most exciting part was
definitiely this morning though. We were in our room and i was writing
letters home. It was Elder Garcias turn to sweep so he moved the bed
and BOOM! there was a bat on the ground. haha Its funny because last
night i woke up in the middle of the night and could hear a bat making
noise. I wasnt sure where it was and it crossed my mind "is that thing
in our room?" but in the end i just thought "eh oh well" and went back
to bed. haha little did i know that it really was in our room and that
it was sleeping under our bed. Dont worry, it was just a baby and no
body got bit. phew. Oh another cool thing that im sure will scare mom
is that the other day at about 5 45 in the morning there was a nice
little earthquake here in Piura. it was probably like a 3 or so. so
nothing much but still cool. From what everyone else has told us there
have been quite a few earthquakes in Certral America Lately? pretty
scary stuff.

Haha i love the story about pops. Someone ask him for me if hes still
"king"? haha Oh so this last friday we had a big family home evening
in the house of a member and invited like 10 familes to come. So we
had a little message and played games and ate cake. But then Peru was
playing against Venezuela and if Peru lost they would be eliminated
from world cup contention so they started to watch the game. They were
all really interested up until Venezuela scored a goal and everyone
went home...haha classic. But then we went to our pensionista and ate
dinner too. We were walking back to our room and all we heard was
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
GGGGGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL"
haha apparently Peru scored two goals and ended up winning the match.
the people were going nuts and ran out into the streets to honk the
horns on their cars and motos haha. the next day everyone was
defiitley much more happy. But now they play against Argentina on
Tuesday and Messi who is the best player in the world so....im sure
itll be short lived haha.

Oh and one more thing. Instead of putting Elder Stephensons name on
packages now, from now until the end of the mission you should put
Chad Alvin Rowley. Thanks!

Well thats all from here in Peru this week. We should have a couple
baptisms this next Sunday from that really awesome family that we are
teaching. Lots of prayers! haha. Love you all tons and thanks for the
constant support!

Hasta la próxima

Love,
Elder Woodburn

Hola Hola Hola

How is everyone doing? It was a pretty good week here in Catacaos, It
seemed to go by pretty quickly. We spent most all of our time working
as usual, knocking lots of doors and getting rejected a lot. Good
times good times. Then Sunday we had stake conference here in
Castilla. It was pretty good. The coolest part though was being able
to see a bunch of members and converts from La Union when they came to
stake conference. It was great to see some of the converts making the
hour long trip out to the stake center with all the members. The best
was seeing "la hermana meche". haha she was our pensionista in La
Union and probably the best pensionista in the whole mission. Shes way
funny and nice and today we also went to La Union as a zone, all 26
missionaries to play games and play soccer. But she made us lunch so
that was waaay delicious and she promised to make me some tacos and
send them to me through the other elders! hahaha.

This week weve been working with a really great family. Its a single
mom and her two kids and they are really excited to be baptized in the
church. We knocked on their door one day and taught her a little bit
about the church and she ended up asking us what it is that she needs
to do to be baptized in the church before the end of the first lesson.
She is definitely one of those that are prepared by Heavenly Father.
It has been great to see her progress and also the growth of her son.
Homefully they will be getting baptized the 16th of September! her
name is Marianela and her kids are Christhian and Suli. haha love her
name :)

Dont worry about me. Its always difficult being with a companion all
day every day especially when your personalities dont exactly mix
perfectly, but thats part of the fun right? making it work. So thats
what im gonna keep doing, making it work and trying to love him like i
would the best of companions haha. Im nice and settled in now and this
week i came to the resolution that its time to put in the extra mile
and go to work even harder so thats what im gonna work towards now.

Thanks for the constant love and support as always. The heat is coming
back here in Peru and chances are ill get sent back to Tumbes where
its hottest of all! haha jk jk. Im actually so used to the heat that
in the mornings its about 65 degrees or so and im so cold that i study
with my blanket....im gonnna die when i get back to Utah for winter.
haha. Love you all tons! Take care until the next week!

Love
Elder Woodburn

Un año atras, un año mas!

Hola todos!

How have you all been? this week has gone pretty well. Success and
frustrations like all the other weeks. Little by little im learning to
appreciate the succeses and forget about the frustration. Lucily i
have one more year left to get it all down. I really hope i can take
advantage of it.

So like you said, this week was the one year mark here in the mission!
It was a pretty normal day, we just had our weekly planning and went
out to teach. But then after dinner i was sure to get a little shirt
burning in since i missed out on burning the tie ;) haha I had my
shirt all ready, and i hope you can see it in the pictures. I wrote the names of
all of my companions from the MTC to Elder Garcia, i wrote all of my
areas, I wrote the name of my group from when i arrived, just a whole
bunch of stuff. And then on the back i wrote "mi primer añito" which
is kinda an inside joke here because people always throw huge
birthdays here for their 2 year old kids and make giant signs that say
"mi primer añito" (my very first year). Just trust me...its funny ;)
I sent a bunch of pics but youll
have to wait to see the video when i get home...its all in spanish so
i dont think youll understand much anyways haha.

But lets see, other than that Elder Penney and I were invited to a
middle school here in Catacaos to be judges for a english speaking and
spellling Bee contest. It was actually pretty cool. We were the only
two white
people there but that was pretty normal. It was just funny because it
was a spelling bee and it was actually pretty obvious that they had
given the kids a list of words to memorize and they had memorized them
exactly as they were on the paper. some of the older kids had words
that had like 15 letters that even i couldnt spell, but they were able
to spell them in 3 seconds flat because they had them memorized. The
best part is that they couldn't  speak a lick of english otherwise. I
It was funny and overall it was a pretty cool experience and a good
chance to help out with the
community a little.

Well thats all for this week. We spent the morning helping out with a
baptism of an 8 year old member even though it wasnt a convert
baptism. Was a little frustrating because we wanted to be taking
advantage of p day but thats okay. At least it all went well and its
time to play soccer in the afternoon! The work goes on. we found a
really great family that has tons of intrest. Il love this work and i
love you all.

Hasta la proxima semana

Love
Elder Woodburn

It's almost my birthday!

Hola familia mia!

It was a good week here in Catacaos. Elder Garcia and i were able to
re focus ourselves and get back to work knocking  on doors and being more
diligent. We have a few investigators now that look like they will
progress towards baptism but we will have to help them overcome a few
obstacles that are in their way . We are gonna need a lot of help but
i have no doubt that it can be done.

So a funny story from this week. We were teaching this family about
the word of wisdom and we went around the table asking if they had a
problem with any of the things and the parents said that they drink (
which is normal here, everyone does) but then we get to the 11 year
old son and we ask him if he smokes?" no." Drugs? "no". drinks? "only a
little bit". We were just like what?!    The best part was that his dad
said, "only sometimes, only when hes hurt and drinks for the pain or
when hes thirsty and there isnt any water around" hahahaha that last
one was my favorite, "only when hes thirsty". classic. I love Piura
Peru!!!! :D

So one year coming this week! Pretty cool. I think im gonna try and
burn a shirt for the one year mark considering i forgot to burn a tie
for the 6 month mark haha. Its definitely gonna be a missionary mall
shirt cuz i dont like them as much as the stafford ones haha. only
problem is that i have exactly the perfect amount of shirts, so im
gonna have to go shopping for another one afterwards ;)

Somebody eat a hamburger for me on Friday ;)

Love you all tons!

Love Elder Woodburn

Cambios

Well the zone leaders called this morning and.....everyone here in
Catacaos is staying right where they are for 6 more weeks. haha Elder
Garcia spent the last week or some saying goodbye to all of the
investigators and members here and now hell be able to say hi to them
again starting tomorrow haha. At the end of this change hell have 6
months here in Catacaos which is a pretty long time, but that was
pretty funny to see their faces when they told us. It should be
interesting to see how it goes this next change. Because he had
already been here so long before the transfer, this last week he didnt
have much desire to work...6 more weeks now so hopefully we can get it
back into gear and start knocking doors, he says hes knocked all the
doors in the area so he doesnt want to anymore but thats not how it
works so well see how it goes! wish me luck! (oh and one more thing,
in spanish there isnt a word for transfers so we use the word cambios
or changes. so if i ever say changes or a change i mean to say
transfers, im just used to it in spanish and i translate it in my
head. Sorry!)

So the next Bourne movie came out huh....well....i had no idea that
there was gonnna be another movie...i thought they had ended the
series....so uh...that was a little bit of a stab in the heart ;) haha
but thats okay...ill live, just have it ready for me when i get home
;)

Im glad everyone liked the video of the trompos it was a lot of fun
making it. Better than doing nothing all P day. it took like 20 shots
to make it because im still a rookie ;) oh but funny story, so this
week we had a talent show and us ( the missionaries) did a nice skit,
we had them announce that the missionaries were going to dance for
everyone! so we went up on stage with our backs to the crowd (the 4 of
us) and they started playing really loud hip hop music and everyone
started clapping. we counted to 3 and turned around holding signs that
said Los misioneros no bailan ( missionaries dont dance) and then
walked off the stage. It got a good laugh out of everyone because they
all thought we were going to see something unforgettable. haha

Thank you all tons for all the love from home! You all definitiely
sent a ton this week. I spent a lot of my hour today searching for my
password and Eaglenet ID, which was a waste of time :( so idk if ill
be able to respond to everyone one by one! sorry!
Trev Kandi y los niños!
hey! how are you all doing?! I love the part you wrote trev about the
smells of tiajuana. Its so true so true...haha By now ive basically
gotten used to it...until i walk past the many random piles of garbage
or a dead animal....oh well. Im glad you understand it. haha im gonna
take your advice to heart. this is my time to learn all that i can.
There isnt going to be any other time in my life when i can dedicate
my life to helping others and in turn, help myself. thanks for giving
me the heads up and telling me what no one ever told you! thats so
awesome that they are into dirtbikes now! did you get one too then?
cuz if thats the case then im gonna have to come visit and take em
out. Did my mom tell you that ive decided im getting a motorcycle when
i get back? youll ahve to back me up on that one and tell her its a
good idea! haha. Miss you all tons. I cant wait to get back and see
how big the boys are and hear all of the stories from your mission
too. Cant believe i never asked! Say hi to Kandi and the Kids for me!
love you all tons!

Sorry there isnt time to say hi to everyone! but i love you all tons
and i feel the love!

Hasta la proxima

Love Elder Woodburn

¡Bala Humana!

Hola Familia!

Bala Humana! That was the headline of one of the newspapers i saw as i
passed the newspaper stand this morning...Human Bullet! It also had a
nice big picture of Usain Bolt on there so im assuming that he won the
100 meters...am i right in also assuming that he broke his own record
again? youll have to let me know about that :) Im really missing out
on the olympics huh? well im sure itll be even better when im back in
4 years. I dont hear a ton about it here because Peru is pretty
terrible. They said that when they did the entrance the USA was on the
screen for like 5 minutes with all of the people competting and then
when Peru came up they didnt even have time to read the countries name
before they went to the next country because almost no one went. haha.
Oh well.

Sounds like you all had a good time in Montana. How many times did you
go out on the lake? cuz i can already see the sun burns that you guys
have in the pictures haha. Good to see pops and grandpops out on the
tube. I bet that was a good laugh ;) I see Josh is just one of the
family now huh? haha someone let him (Josh) know that i still havent
given away that Book of Mormon yet, I can write a heartfelt testimony
in Spanish, but i wanna make sure its someone that is going to treat
the book good.

Ive been thinking about what i want to study and i still havent
decided for sure but i think i wanna go into dentistry or
orthodontics. Ill have to think about it some more and pray a lot ;)
let me know what you think. thanks for finishing with the CDs! cant
wait to hear em. As for anything else that i need? hmmm...i can never
think of anything when you ask :s sorry! oh wait, a few weeks ago i
was gonna ask but forgot, idk if you could send me another journal
like the one that Alli bought me? or if thats not possible i think
there are also looseleaf ones that would be a little bit easier to
send. I just would like one of the same type because if im gonna keep
it forever i dont want it in a dragon ball z notebook (which is all
they have here ;)) Thanks!

This week has been going well here in Catacoas, nothing too out of the
normal, this is the last week of the change so next Monday well see
whos going where and whos staying. Elder Garcia has been here 41/2
months so theres a chance that he goes, but we will have to wait and

see!

I didnt have enough time last week to tell you thanks for that awesome

bit  of counsel you sent! :) Looking ahead, i can definitiely see it
happening, Ive been enveloped in this world and it feels like the
normal now. There are times where i forget how dirty it is, how no one is
married yet living together, how irreverent sacrament meeting is, or

 how no one wants to listen, but looking ahead, i KNOW that i
am going to miss it so much. Im going to take that cousel to heart.
This is the time when i should take full advantage of it. Im not sure
why but ive been thinking a lot this week about what you told me and i
feel like i have a better outlook on the next year here in the
mission. Its just work, thats all it is. Work and love. As long as im
willing to have both, its really isnt hard. I love this work so much.
I know that its true. 

Love you all tons! Until next week!

Love,
Elder Woodburn